You schedule a meeting with a client by email in one message. Offer two or three specific times you’ve already checked against your calendar. Say how long it runs, where it happens and what the client should bring. Then say what happens when they pick one: “I’ll send the invitation.” That’s the whole of meeting scheduling from email for law firms. The back-and-forth comes from leaving one of those out.
This guide covers the message for each kind of meeting a practice books. A prospective client wants a consultation. An existing client needs an hour on a settlement offer. Opposing counsel wants a date for a mediation with four calendars in it. Each gets a template you can copy. After that come booking links, polls and AI scheduling, and a shortlist of tools with what each one actually does.
Meeting scheduling from email for law firms, in one message
Most scheduling threads run long for one reason. The first message asks a question when it could have made an offer. “When are you free next week?” takes three replies to settle. “Tuesday at 10:00 or Wednesday at 3:30?” takes one.
A first message that ends the thread carries five things:
- Two or three specific times. Checked against your calendar while you write. Three is enough. Six makes the client do your sorting.
- The length. A consultation is 30 minutes or an hour. Say which, so they can fit it.
- The place. Your office with the address, a video link, or a phone number and who calls whom.
- What to bring. Papers, a timeline, the letter they received. One line.
- The next step. “Reply with the one that suits and I’ll send the invitation.”
Hold the times you offer for a day or two. If you don’t, the slot can go to someone else before they answer. Say so if you can’t hold them: “These are open as of this morning.”
The mechanics of collapsing a scheduling chain, counted message by message, are in scheduling a meeting without the email chain. This piece stays with what a practice books and how.
Answering a consultation request the same day
A prospective client who writes in is usually writing to more than one firm. Clio’s 2024 secret-shopper test, as relayed by one marketing blog, found 79% of legal consumers expect a reply within 24 hours. A same-day reply with real times in it is often the whole difference.
Template: consultation request from a new inquiry
Subject: Consultation with [Attorney], [Firm]
Hi [First name],
Thanks for getting in touch. [Attorney] can meet with you for a [30-minute] consultation at any of these times:
- Tuesday, October 13, at 10:00 a.m.
- Wednesday, October 14, at 3:30 p.m.
- Friday, October 16, at 9:00 a.m.
All times are Eastern. We can meet at our office at [address], by video, or by phone.
Before we meet, please reply with the full names of anyone else involved, such as the other party and their lawyer if they have one. We use these to check for conflicts. Please don't send details of what happened yet. [Attorney] will go through that with you.
Reply with the time that suits and I'll send a calendar invitation. [The consultation fee is $X / The first consultation is free.]
[Name]
[Firm] · [Phone]Two lines in that template do quiet work. The fee line saves a call. The request for names, and only names, sets up the conflict check without inviting the story.
Why the template asks for names and not the story
Someone who writes to you about a possible matter is a prospective client the moment they do. ABA Model Rule 1.18 defines it this way:
A person who consults with a lawyer about the possibility of forming a client-lawyer relationship with respect to a matter is a prospective client.
What they tell you can disqualify the firm from the other side of that matter. The rule lets a firm keep going in some cases, provided the lawyer who heard it:
took reasonable measures to avoid exposure to more disqualifying information than was reasonably necessary to determine whether to represent the prospective client
So the booking message, and any form on a booking page, asks for what a conflict check needs and stops there. Names of the parties, the other side’s counsel, the general kind of matter. States vary. D.C.’s version of Rule 1.18 is triggered by any confidence or secret, which makes the narrow form matter more there. Check your own state’s text.
How a firm handles what’s in client email more generally belongs to AI and client confidentiality.
Booking a meeting with a client you already have
An existing client needs less selling and more precision. They know where you are. What they need is the purpose, so they arrive with the right papers and the right answers.
Template: meeting with an existing client
Subject: [Matter]: meeting to go through [the settlement offer]
Hi [First name],
[Opposing counsel] has sent a settlement offer, and I'd like 45 minutes with you to go through it before we respond. Their deadline is [Friday, October 23].
Could you do one of these?
- Monday, October 19, at 11:00 a.m.
- Tuesday, October 20, at 2:00 p.m.
By video or at our office, whichever you prefer. Please have [the figures from your accountant] to hand.
Reply with the time and I'll send the invitation with the link.
[Attorney]Name the deadline when there is one. It tells the client why this week and not next. The court-dates guide covers the reminders that go out once the meeting is booked.
Meetings with counsel on the other side
Multi-party meetings in a practice have a shape most scheduling advice ignores. You arrange them counsel to counsel. Each lawyer checks their own client’s availability and comes back with times.
ABA Model Rule 4.2 is the reason:
In representing a client, a lawyer shall not communicate about the subject of the representation with a person the lawyer knows to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, unless the lawyer has the consent of the other lawyer or is authorized to do so by law or a court order.
That has a direct consequence for the scheduling email. ABA Formal Opinion 503, issued November 2, 2022, looked at clients copied on counsel emails:
In the absence of special circumstances, lawyers who copy their clients on an electronic communication sent to counsel representing another person in the matter impliedly consent to receiving counsel’s “reply all” to the communication.
The opinion recommends forwarding to your client separately instead. Several states read it differently, so check your own. For scheduling, the safe habit is simple. Your client isn’t on the thread with the other side. You confirm times with them in a separate email, then reply to counsel.
Template: proposing dates to opposing counsel
Subject: [Case name]: dates for mediation with [Mediator]
Counsel,
[Mediator]'s office has these full days open:
- Tuesday, November 10
- Thursday, November 12
- Monday, November 16
My client is available on all three. Could you let me know which work for yours by [Friday, October 23]? I'll confirm with [Mediator]'s office once we agree, and they'll send the invitation.
Sessions start at 9:00 a.m. Mountain at [Mediator]'s Denver office, with remote attendance by video if needed.
[Attorney]
[Firm] · [Phone]That message does four things a casual one misses. It offers dates already cleared with your client. It sets a date for an answer. It names who sends the invitation. It states the clock the time is in.
When four or more parties have to agree, and nobody’s calendar can be seen by the others, a poll beats a chain. More on that below.
Addressing the email
Write to a named lawyer as you would in a letter: “Dear Ms. Ortiz” in a first message, first names once they use yours. Opposing counsel is often “Counsel” in a working thread. To a firm with no name to hand, address the role: “Dear [Firm] intake team.” If you’re writing to schedule with a firm’s lawyer and you know the assistant who keeps their calendar, copy the assistant. It halves the wait.
Getting the time zone right
A matter with a client in Phoenix and counsel in Chicago is an ordinary week. Write every time with its zone, and give the other person’s clock when you know it:
Tuesday, November 10, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific)
Use “Eastern” and “Pacific” rather than EST or PST. Those abbreviations are wrong for half the year, and Arizona doesn’t change clocks at all. The calendar invitation then carries the zone itself, so each person sees it in their own time. The details, including the weeks when the usual gap shifts, are in scheduling across time zones.
Proposed times, a booking link, a poll or an assistant
Four ways to settle a time from an email. Each suits a different meeting.
| Method | Suits | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Proposed times in the email | Existing clients, counsel, anyone senior to you | Takes your few minutes each time |
| Booking link | New inquiries who asked for a consultation | Reads as cold to a client mid-matter or to the other side |
| Scheduling poll | Four or more people across firms | Needs everyone to vote; someone still has to close it |
| AI scheduling assistant | High volume of one-to-one meetings | It writes to your clients, so you choose what it may say |
A booking link is right for intake. The prospect came to you and wants the earliest slot. Put the link in the same-day reply, beside a line saying you’re glad to offer times by email instead. For anyone mid-matter, named times from you read better. When a link reads as rude, and how to send one so it costs you nothing, is covered in booking links that show real availability.
Check what your calendar claims before you publish it. A booking page sees only the calendars connected to it. If court dates live on a firm calendar the page can’t see, a client can book over a hearing.
A shortlist of scheduling tools for a practice
Prices and plan limits change without notice. These were checked on October 4, 2026.
| Tool | What it does | Fits | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail offer times | Inserts your free times into an email; the client picks one and Gmail books it | Solo Gmail users, one-to-one meetings | Primary calendar only; “only the first person who books can join” if there are several recipients |
| Google Calendar appointment schedules | A booking page from your calendar | Firms on Google Workspace | Free; checking several calendars and email reminders need a paid plan |
| Outlook Scheduling Poll | Sends a vote on times, including to people outside the firm | Mediations, depositions, multi-counsel calls | Needs Microsoft 365 with Exchange Online; the organizer picks the final time |
| Microsoft Bookings | Booking pages tied to Outlook, with email and SMS notifications | Firms on Microsoft 365 | Included in Business Basic, Standard and Premium |
| Calendly | Booking pages, with reminders on paid plans | Intake across several lawyers | Free plan has one event type; Standard listed at $10 a seat a month; round-robin is on Teams |
| Clio Scheduler | Booking for prospective clients, with payment in advance through Clio Payments | Firms already on Clio | Bookings flow into Clio |
| Lawmatics | Intake with booking, confirmations and reminders | Firms with a marketing and intake process | Built around intake rather than the inbox |
| Howie | An AI assistant you loop into a thread; it proposes times and sends invitations | High volume of one-to-one meetings | Connects to Gmail and Google Calendar; team plan from $25 a month |
If you’re on Microsoft 365 and book a few consultations a week, Bookings and Scheduling Poll are already in what you pay for. If you’re on Clio and take payment up front, Clio Scheduler keeps the booking where the matter lives. An AI assistant earns its keep when scheduling is a daily job, not a weekly one.
A Thursday morning, worked through
Sarah runs a seven-person firm. Three scheduling emails are in her inbox at 8:30.
A new inquiry. A landlord in a dispute with a tenant asks for a consultation. Sarah sends the consultation template with three times this week, the booking link as an alternative and the fee line. She asks for the tenant’s name and nothing else. Elapsed time: three minutes.
A client. Mr. Hale wants to talk about the counteroffer. Sarah has two gaps tomorrow. She offers both, names Monday’s response deadline and asks him to bring his bank statements. He replies at 9:10 with “2:00 works.” She sends the invitation.
Opposing counsel. Counsel in the Ortiz matter wants a mediation date. The mediator is in Denver and Sarah’s client is in Phoenix. She emails her client separately for availability first. At 11:00 the client confirms two of the three dates. Sarah replies to counsel with those two, in Mountain time, and an answer-by date. She doesn’t copy her client.
Three meetings are underway before lunch, with one email each from her side.
Scheduling from the thread with Point
Point is a full email client that sits on the Gmail or Microsoft 365 account you already have. The thread and the calendar are in one place.
When a meeting needs arranging, you say so on the thread in plain words. “Find Mr. Hale 45 minutes tomorrow.” Point checks your calendars, reconciles them, and puts times you’re actually free into the reply. When the client answers in their own words, Point reads it. A request to move the meeting gets caught even when it’s three paragraphs into a reply about something else. Once the time’s agreed, you approve it. The invitation goes out with everyone on it, and the event lands on your real calendar.
Scheduling has its own autonomy setting, and it starts on review. The times Point proposes and the invitation it writes both come to you first. Nothing goes to a client until you’ve looked. You raise the setting once you’ve watched a few threads run. The dial explains each level. Point keeps an ordered record of what it did, so you can undo from there. An invitation already accepted can be withdrawn, though not erased from the client’s calendar.
For intake, Point can publish a booking page from the same reconciled calendars. A prospect picks a time you’re free across all of them. For counsel and clients mid-matter, named times from you stay the default.
The matter is your word. You name it, and Point finds the threads. Everything else Point does is on the benefits page, and the beta is open from the home page.
Common questions
How do I schedule a meeting using an email?
Offer two or three specific times you’ve checked against your calendar. Add the length, the place and what to bring. End with the next step: “Reply with the one that suits and I’ll send the invitation.” Once they pick, send a calendar invitation so the meeting is on both calendars with the zone attached.
How do I write an email to schedule a meeting?
Put the purpose in the subject line, with the matter name if there is one. Open with why you’re meeting and any deadline behind it. List the times as bullets, each with its day, date and time zone. Close with what you’ll do once they reply. Keep it short enough to answer from a phone.
How do I send an email to schedule an appointment?
For a one-off, use the message above. For a steady flow of consultations, add a booking link to your reply so a prospect can choose a slot directly. Keep the link for people who asked to meet you, and offer named times to everyone else.
How do you address an email to a law firm?
Address a named lawyer by title and surname in a first message: “Dear Mr. Patel.” If you don’t have a name, write to the role: “Dear [Firm] intake team.” State in the first line whether you’re a prospective client, a current client or counsel on another matter, so the email reaches the right person.
Should I copy my client when scheduling with opposing counsel?
ABA Formal Opinion 503 says copying your client on email to opposing counsel implies consent to their reply-all. It recommends forwarding to your client separately. Confirm availability with your client in their own email, then write to counsel. Your state’s rules may differ.
What should a consultation booking form ask for?
Enough for a conflict check: the names of the parties, the other side’s lawyer and the general kind of matter. Leave the facts for the consultation itself. Rule 1.18 rewards a firm that took reasonable steps not to hear more than it needed before deciding.